The present invention relates to an improved timepiece with mechanism for indicating the time of different time zones.
It is known that the time in regions located in different time zones is currently ascertained with timepieces known as "meridians" which comprise a dial with the indication of the local minutes and hours, whereas the time corresponding to the different time zones appears on the dial through openings or windows provided therein and labeled with signs indicating the time zone and/or with names of cities located in the related time zone. The signs indicating the hours of the time zones are defined on a disk which is below the dial and rotates by one step every hour.
The advancement of said disk is manual or automatic. It has been observed that in timepieces with automatic advancement, for example of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,702,056, the time zone hour change step lasts even as much as a few minutes, so that during the change of the time zone hour it is not possible to read any digit and therefore know the hour of the time zone. In conventional automatic timepieces, considerable power is furthermore required by the actuation elements, so that the autonomy of the timepiece is reduced substantially.
In order to obviate the above-mentioned shortcomings the applicant, together with the coinventor Armando Zoli, now deceased, disclosed in the Italian Utility Model Patent No. 212,264 a timepiece with indication of the time in different time zones having reduced energy requirements with respect to traditional timepieces of this type.